The Bloody Office
by doctorg
Summary: Just a little story in the Quriosity universe. Inspired by a scene in The Hour, where Ben Whishaw's character says, "I don't want to die at the bloody office!" 00Q (James Bond / Q). Post-Skyfall. Read "Quriosity" first if you're able. Rating is for language.
1. Chapter 1

This first part in italics is a brief exchange from Quriosity, you'll need to know it for the rest of this story to make sense:

* * *

_"It's the camera on my laptop," Q said abruptly._

_"What?" Bond flicked Q a puzzled glance, but he was still looking out the window._

_"I modified the camera on my laptop with a fisheye lens, and wrote a facial recognition algorithm to account for the distortion. It's mapped onto MI-6's directory. When someone approaches anywhere behind me, it displays their name in the title bar of the active window of the monitor bank, in a code of my own devising. If the person is not cleared by MI-6, it flashes an alert. No one has noticed so far. Nobody ever pays attention to title bars, and if anyone did notice the change it would still look like gibberish."_

_"Oh." Bond thought about it for a moment, and chuckled despite himself. "That's...clever."_

_Q's forehead was pressed against the window, his eyes closed. His voice was slow and meditative when he spoke, as if he were thinking aloud. "I learned early in life to watch my own back, rather than trusting others to do it for me."_

* * *

"Q, you are not wielding a bloody _jackhammer_ until I get home. That thing weighs more than you do, the recoil will probably send your head through the bloody skylight."

Q smiled even as he turned down the volume in his earpiece to compensate for Bond's outburst. "Only _Americans_ call it a jackhammer," Q snarked. "And I am perfectly familiar with the operation of a pneumatic drill, thank you very much."

"Of course you are," Bond grumbled. "I'm fine exercising in the workshop, Q. There's absolutely no need to tear up the living room floor and dig into the foundation."

"Nonsense, the cold is no good for you. Besides, it'll be lovely." Q tapped a few keys, opening up the schematics in a new window on the main screen. R wouldn't mind, it was past midnight and Q Branch was deserted except for the two of them. "I have enough of the original flooring left over to make a sliding panel in the hardwood, you'll hardly know it's there. And then the treadmill will just pop right up when we want it." He rotated the schematics in three dimensions, admiring his own design.

"You don't give a damn about the treadmill, you just want to tinker," Bond said fondly. "Besides, I like running in the park with you."

"I'll make it a double-wide treadmill. There's this DVD we can put on where we can pretend we're running from zombies. It'll be fun!"

"Your idea of fun is very different from mine."

Q smiled wickedly. "Not always," he said, dropping his voice to a low purr.

"Minx," Bond growled, a sudden roughness in his voice, and Q smiled as the window in the corner of the screen with Bond's vitals showed a sudden spike in respiration, pulse, and body temperature.

R gave Q a knowing glance as she pulled his Scrabble mug off the corner of his desk, taking it and her own empty coffee mug to the kitchen for refills.

Q cleared his throat, blushing only a little, he hoped. "Ta!" he called after her.

Bond muttered something under his breath and Q turned the volume on the earpiece up again. As he accidentally overshot the correct setting he could hear water sloshing gently in the background.

"Are you in the bath? Because if you short out another earpiece, James, so help me I'll…"

"Prat," Bond interrupted good-naturedly. "I'm wearing your tiepin camera. Put it up on screen."

"R's just fetching us a cuppa," Q warned, already tapping the relevant keys. "If you _are_ in the bath she'll get quite the view."

"If I_ were _in the bath, exactly _what_ would the camera be pinned to?" Bond rejoinded easily.

Q snickered. "Far be it from me to underestimate your ingenuity — oh." He tapped a few more keys and expanded the window to fill the full screen, simultaneously dimming the Q Branch lights. "Oh, James — it's beautiful," he breathed.

The sunset filled the whole front wall of Q Branch, brilliant streaks of red and orange and gold that flooded the sterile white-painted brick walls and columns of Q Branch with vivid colour.

"I thought you'd like it," Bond said, the quiet tenderness in his voice sending warmth through Q's chest that rivaled the molten glow of the sun on screen. "I had to get all the way out to the end of the jetty to catch the Western-facing view over Basseterre Bay, but it's worth it, I think."

"I love it," Q smiled. "You're such a secret romantic."

"Not so secret anymore," Bond rumbled.

Q felt himself flushing, and cleared his throat as he heard the door to Q Branch open again. "R, isn't it — "

He blinked, his brow furrowing as the entire window flashed red in warning. He hadn't seen that happen since he had last tested the intruder alert on his facial recognition program…

He ducked under his desk just a moment before the shot cracked out.

"Fuck," he muttered scrabbling under his desk for his metal equipment return tray. Margot had checked in her equipment earlier this evening and he hadn't had a chance to return it to the armory yet.

"What is it, Q?" He could hear the sudden hyperawareness in Bond's voice.

"Hostiles in Q Branch." Q could feel the eerie calm of mission mode settling over himself as well as he snapped a half-full magazine into the box of the Walther. "Stand by."

The light on the microdermal sensor lit green as the weapon recognized Q's palmprint. Q's standing desk was almost no cover. He was not such an easy target now that he wasn't backlit by the bright screen, but their eyes would adjust.

"How many?" Bond asked, his voice low and tight.

Q took a deep breath, and then scrambled on his hands and knees to the side, overturning one of the smaller tables. It crashed to the tile floor, providing Q with a small amount of cover but unfortunately giving away his location beyond any doubt.

He flattened himself on the floor as two more shots thunked into the surface of the table. Thank god, they didn't seem to be high enough calibre to pierce the metal.

Q avoided the temptation to duck up above his cover, leaning left and then right to examine the shiny tile floor instead. After countless hours spent in the Branch after dark, Q knew every inch of the branch even in dim lighting, and three shadows did not belong.

"At least three," he muttered into his microphone. "When I say, cover your camera."

"Understood."

Q could feel his heart thumping, his breath rasping through his dry throat, and he swallowed. "Three, two, one, _now_."

Q branch plunged into darkness, the figures silhouetted against the lights of the hallway as Q knelt up, bracing his forearm on the table edge and firing three shots in quick succession. Two dropped immediately — after all his time on the firing range testing weapons Q was a damn good shot — but the third ducked away, returning fire.

"Damn. One left," Q muttered into the microphone. "One more bullet."

Q heard the door to Q Branch start to swish open again. In sudden inspiration, Q turned his head. The LED screen was still dark, but the menu bar was green, R's name appearing in the title in Q's own code.

"R! Get down! Hostiles!" Q shouted. "Bond, light!"

Events seemed to pass in a flash of images — Q Branch flooding with magenta light as Bond uncovered his camera, revealing the man who was already turning towards R, gun lifted. R's wide brown eyes and the crack of Q's Scrabble mug and her coffee cup smashing to the tile floor as Q fired his last bullet.

The man jerked and cursed, ducking down under cover of his own. Q couldn't see R anymore, and he felt a chill crawl up his spine. How many gunshots had there been? Was R down, or had she managed to find cover herself?

"Q?" Bond's urgent voice was in Q's ear, grounding him.

"I'm okay, James," he whispered. "Out of bullets though. Last one may be injured, but he's not down. And god knows how many others there are outside the Branch."

"Your taser?"

Q looked longingly at his messenger bag, still atop his standing desk. Too far. "Not reachable."

"Q…" Bond's voice was bleak.

Q swallowed down the lump in his throat. "I love you, James."

"I love you too, Q. Oh god — so much."

There were no more words to exchange. They breathed into the silence, waiting, the blood-red light dimming slowly to indigo as the sun sank below the horizon in St. Kitts. Unless the man was severely injured, he would be breaking cover any moment now. It would take him only seconds to realize that Q was out of rounds.

_Chhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrr…_

Q's brow furrowed at the strange noise. He risked a quick peek around the table top, barely able to make out the oblong object, rolling across the tile floor from where R had last been seen, coming to resst against the table behind which the hostile had taken cover.

"Oh, R. You bloody _genius_. I could _kiss_ you," he muttered.

"What? What is it, Q?"

Q smiled. "Sorry about the bang you're about to get in your ear, James. But did I mention R developed a prototype of that exploding pen you're always on about?"

Q curled himself into a ball, head to his knees, closing his eyes and sticking his fingers in his ears, Bond's shaky breath of relief rasping warm and loud in his ear as the explosion shook the Branch.


	2. Chapter 2

_Warning: Halocarbon activation in ten seconds."_

Q pulled himself to his feet, coughing and sputtering, as the announcement blared overhead. He lurched for his desk, grabbing his messenger bag and laptop. The explosion had been well-contained, but he and R shouldn't be here when the clean agent fire suppression system engaged.

Q stumbled through the smoke towards R's desk. A figure loomed in front of him and he instinctively struck out, pulling up short at the last minute as he recognized R's small figure. She was hurriedly yanking her laptop free of its connections.

"R — thank god," Q coughed. "We have to go."

"I know." R's brown eyes were wide and shell-shocked through the haze of dust and smoke, her hands trembling as she rummaged through her desk drawer. She grabbed something and they stumbled out together, the door to Q Branch's comm center hissing closed behind them just as the swoosh of compressed gas filled the room.

"Are you all right?" Q's eyes scanned R. She was covered in plaster dust, her hair falling out of its usual messy bun in streams down to her waist. She wiped a forearm across her eyes, coughing, but nodded.

"The gunmen...the explosion. Someone should have come by now," she managed, her voice thin and shaky.

Q had been thinking the same thing. "Either all of HQ has been taken or they've managed to isolate the basement level somehow. We won't know which until we get a wider view." He pulled up his cardigan, using his relatively clean shirttail to clean his glasses before he looked around. Christ, but they were exposed out in the hallway like this.

"We can't stay here." He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, sending an unexpected shower of plaster dust down on him again.

"The tunnels." R opened her hand, showing him the small object she had grabbed from her desk drawer. It was a secure mobile hotspot device, working off MI6's own satellites — the kind that allowed their operatives connectivity in the darkest corners of the earth. She jerked her head toward the sealed comm room. "If we access them through there they won't think to look. We can get into the security feeds, see what's going on. What they're after."

"You're getting a pay rise." The joke was weak but R smiled, even as her hand unconsciously went to the locket around her neck that Q knew held pictures of her children. "You still have an earpiece?" he asked.

She pulled the small device from her ear, handing it to Q. He adjusted it to Bond's frequency, handing it back. "Testing," he said.

"Confirmed," R said, her voice sounding in Q's ear just a fraction delayed from her real voice.

"Good." Q gave his best attempt at an encouraging smile. "I'll open the trapdoors from here. You move on three. Down into the tunnels, along the evacuation route, far enough that an initial search won't find you, and then establish communication. Start with the entrance and executive level security feeds…"

"Q!" R's hand instinctively shot out, grasping the sleeve of Q's cardigan before she pulled it away again equally suddenly, knotting her fingers together in distress. She was one of the few at MI6 who had apparently intuited Q's issues with touch, and she was usually scrupulously careful. "You're coming too."

Q had been tuning out the sounds from his earpiece — Bond's huffing breaths as he apparently ran down the jetty, followed by traffic noises that indicated that Bond was driving as recklessly as he did on any mission. Now Bond's voice broke through, tense and strident. "Of course he is. Q, get to safety and hunker down. Reinforcements should be there any minute."

God, he wanted to. Wanted to scurry away and hide in some corner until this was all over. Wanted to avoid Bond's reaction at what he knew he had to say next.

"They're here for something. We don't know what it is, and we don't know who else is capable of seeing that they don't get it. Bond, get to your laptop. R will mirror her screen to yours. You'll both provide me with tactical."

Q's stomach churned as Bond spoke again, his voice icy now with rage. "You're not a bloody agent, Q. It's not your job to get yourself killed playing hero. _Get down in the fucking tunnels."_

"I'll stay here with you, then," R said stubbornly. "I'm not running away and leaving you up here alone."

"And I'm not arguing with _either_ of you," Q snapped, putting every ounce of authority he could into his voice. "R, you know our system works for a reason. One on comms, one in the field. You'll be no good to me if you're not in a secure position yourself. Bond, get to your damn laptop and help with strategy. I'm not going in with guns blazing, I know my limitations. We need to be smart about this, and you can help, but if you both don't s_top bloody countermanding me_ we'll get killed right here still squabbling about it."

R pressed her lips together, but then nodded. Bond maintained an icy silence, only the aggravated honking of horns and the screech of tires coming through on his end.

Q balanced his laptop on his arm, pulling the taser from his messenger bag and shoving it in his back pocket before holding the bag out to R. "Take this. You'll need to cover your ears against the pressure changes."

R shook her head. "Keep the bag, you daft bastard. You'll need it more than I will." Her long skirt was coffee-stained and covered in dust, but she didn't seem to notice as she grabbed two corners of it, pulling them up and knotting them firmly. She dropped her laptop into the impromptu pocket, tucking the knot into her waistband to secure it, and then slid the mobile hotspot into the calf of one of her tall boots. She straightened up, blinking away the moisture gathering in her eyes. "Good luck, Q. See you on the other side of this, okay?"

Q felt a surge of affection, the knot of emotion rising up in his throat. Untold hours spent in R's steady presence, and he didn't know her as well as he should — couldn't even recall the names of her sons right now. He reached out slowly, brushing the plaster dust from her dusky cheek with his thumb before leaning in to place a kiss on that spot. "On the other side," he affirmed.

He stood back, clearing his throat. "On my count, R," he said, typing in the code to open the trap doors to the tunnels. "Hold your breath and cover your ears."

R took a deep breath, and stood a pace away from the motion sensor for the comm center door. "Three, two, one, go," Q said, and then R was running, fingers in her ears, through the dust and smoke. Q waited until he saw her dim figure disappear down the ladder, and then he resealed the trap doors.

"Q." Bond's voice was low and taut with tension. "You can still change your mind. You're worth more to MI6 than anything they could be after. If you're captured…"

Q began moving, instinctively making his way to the server room. "They're not out to capture anyone, Bond. They didn't even try for an ID before shooting to kill."

"All the more reason to _stay out of it,"_ Bond fired back. Q could tell he was trying for a reasonable tone, but the undertone of desperate appeal made Q's stomach twist.

"Would you?"

Bond cursed, low and harsh, and then fell silent.

R's voice broke through. "I'm into the security feeds. Bond, are you at your screen?"

"Five more minutes."

Q could hear R's fingers flying over the keyboard. "They came in just after midnight, once the cleaning staff had gone. Four teams of four, they hit all the entrances simultaneously. They — oh god — it's the same at every entrance. Shot the guard dead on sight, and replaced him with one of their own. The guard at the Eastern entrance — oh god, Ernie, he was so kind…" R's voice broke, and she seemed to gather herself, clearing her throat. "Ernie shot one — he's down, maybe dead, I can't tell — but the others didn't even have time to draw their weapons. The remaining team members took the bodies of the guards with them, down the stairs to the basement."

"They're keeping up appearances in the lobby," Bond rasped. "All the stairwells empty out there, fire regulations. They don't have to secure the whole building, just keep people out of the basement. Not too much of a task this time of night."

"They must have disabled the lifts somehow," Q thought aloud.

"Q, stop!" R's voice rang out, shrill in his ear, and Q froze in place. "The server room is compromised. Bloody hell, they're sweeping the hallways, converging on your position. Go back...um, twenty metres, there's a supplies cupboard."

Q felt every hair on the back of his neck rise as he doubled back, his heart thumping in his chest. Christ, he had been so focused on trying to figure out what the hostiles were doing he had forgotten that he himself was being hunted. He ducked into the cupboard.

"It doesn't lock," he said with a dry mouth. He could hear them now, slamming open doors up and down the hall, getting closer.

Through the earpiece Q could hear Bond grinding his teeth. "Ceiling?" Bond rasped.

Q squinted upwards. "Drop tile."

"Accessing blueprints," R said, as Q started to stack some unfortunately flimsy-looking boxes. "Fifty centimetres of clearance."

"Get up there," Bond grated out. "Keep your pressure points on the crossbars."

The doors slammed closer as Q gingerly climbed up on the boxes, wobbling woefully before he managed to get a grip on one of the metal crossbars, pushing one of the tiles upwards and into the ceiling space. He threw his messenger bag up, sliding it forward as best he could. He reached up, grabbing the crossbar, trying to pull himself up.

Christ. Runs with Bond notwithstanding, he was _bloody_ out of shape. He couldn't help a sad grunt as he tried to heave himself upwards and failed. The top box slid out from under his pinwheeling feet, and he dangled helplessly for a moment.

"Q, they're almost on you. Get up there!" R snapped, and Q heaved up one more time. An awful, grinding noise escaped him, but he managed to get one elbow over the bar, and then finally the other. He grabbed the next crossbar and slid himself forward into the dark, dusty space, burying his nose in his arm to try not to sneeze.

"They'll be there in five...four...three...two…" R was counting, and Q scrabbled to turn himself around, dropping the tile back into the ceiling just as the door slammed open. He closed his eyes, willing every muscle in his body to stillness, trying not to even breathe as someone seemed to kick around the boxes, knocking over a stand of mops before the door slammed shut again.

Q waited a moment, fearful of some kind of trick, before he realized that he was thinking a little wildly. "Clear," he whispered, and was rewarded by Bond's muttered "Thank fucking _Christ_" and R's near-sob of relief.

"Q — just stay there, all right?" Bond's voice was gritty, desperate. "Please, love. _Please."_

Q closed his eyes. "Let's just find out what they're after, and we'll see. But James — " Q took a deep breath, letting it out shakily through his nose. "Don't ask again."

* * *

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